


The Story Of How We Met

by Rose_Watson



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: A lot - Freeform, Bruce is an adorable boyfriend, Childhood, F/M, Gen, Hooray for lonely childhood friends!, This is probably a prequel to something I haven't written yet idk, Tony Interrupts, Tony hush, it's Story Time!, thinking about the past
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-11
Updated: 2014-08-11
Packaged: 2018-02-12 19:05:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2121261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rose_Watson/pseuds/Rose_Watson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bruce Banner is amused by how his girlfriend, Amelia Scott, and  his best friend, Tony Stark, get along. He knows they've known each other for a long time and when Amelia pulls out the scrapbook and shows him pictures from when they were little, he asks the full story.</p>
<p>Or, Amelia tries to tell a story and Tony won't stop interrupting with his opinions.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Story Of How We Met

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mooseholmes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mooseholmes/gifts).



> Hello! Soooo, this is the first fic I've ever really finished and felt comfortable posting, sooo....yeah. It's actually been sitting around on my computer for a couple years now and I reread it from time to time(and still love it, its the best thing I've ever written) and have decided to give to the world as a gift!(whether or not the world wants it, it has no choice) This may or may not turn into a series??? i'm not sure. There's a half finished thing that's supposed to come after this but I dont like it and I dont think it'll ever get finished. If anyone tells me they want to know more about my Amelia/Bruce thing I can attempt to write it, but no promises. Ever. I suck at writing. Sorry.
> 
> Anyway, only Amelia and her background with Tony belong to me, all other characters belong to Marvel, etc, etc. I don't think i've ever shared this with anyone to beta? Maybe when I first wrote it, and that would have been to my friend Moose, but otherwise all mistakes are completely my own. Probably. Sorry.
> 
> Happy Reading...?

“So, you really have known Tony forever, huh?” Bruce asks, looking up from the scrapbook.  
“Yeah,” Amelia says softly, blushing and looking down. “Lost touch for a while, but the thing in Afghanistan made him think about his friends. I got a call while watching his interview. Came to find him after he came out as Iron Man,” she admits, pushing her glasses back up her nose.  
“How did you even meet?” Bruce smiles slightly, closing the album and pushing it aside.  
“It's a long story,” Amelia says sheepishly, scooting closer to her boyfriend.  
“I've got time,” Bruce grins, pressing a kiss to her cheek and an arm around her shoulder, which she leans into.  
“Well...It started in Kindergarten...”

I had just moved from England, and was really nervous about making friends. My father was some wealthy business man and I was going to a very exclusive private school where everyone already knew each other from, like, preschool. I was the first one into the classroom, actually, and the teacher just told me to take a seat on the alphabet rug. I sat on the S, for my last name Scott, and waited nervously. I already had glasses then, but didn't really need them, so I was sat there twiddling with my glasses and putting them on and off my face. A minute later, another boy came in, obviously annoyed at being there so early, and came to sit down.  
“Hey, you're on my letter,” he said, annoyed when he saw I was on the S.  
“I-I'm sorry,” I stuttered, turning pink, “We can share it,” I offered, scooting off to one side.   
He stood there for a moment, then sat down begrudgingly, legs sprawled out in front of him.  
“So what's your name? Sammy? Sarah? Skylar?” he asks, turning his head to look at me as I bring my hand up to my face to chew on my entirely too long jacket sleeve. Like, seriously, it drug on the floor when I stood up.  
“Amelia,” I said quietly, and that got his attention real quick. He sat up straight and actually turned his body to face me all the way.  
“Then why are you on the S? I'm Tony, by the way. Tony Stark,” he said, sticking out his hand for me to shake. I glanced at it and hesitantly stuck out my other arm, sleeve trailing behind.  
“My last name is Scott,” I told him, staring at the ground and pushing my glasses back up my nose.  
“Cool,” he said, nodding approvingly. “What's your accent, anyways? It sounds like my butler Jarvis's.” he suddenly asked, spinning his head back around.  
“I just moved here from England. I used to live in London,” I said softly, grinning. His smile was contagious, even back then.  
“Cool,” he nodded again. “Why do you where such a giant jacket? What's the point? I'm sure it would be easy to find one that actually fits.”  
“It used to be my mum's. It's the only thing I have left of her,” I told him. I was a lot more open when I was younger. It wasn't until later that year that I figured out that telling people your mother was dead isn't a good way to get friends.  
“That sucks. My dad's practically dead. I know its not the same, but I never see him except in the middle of the night when I'm supposed to be asleep. My mom's usually yelling at him for being drunk, whatever that means,” he told me. He was more open when he was younger too.  
“That must suck too. My dad's usually working and I only ever talk to the new maid,” I tell him as more people start to show up.  
“Well, maybe now you'll have someone else to talk to,” he grinned at me and I grinned back from behind my sleeve.  
Everyday we sat next to each other on the S square, even when the teacher told us to each get our own.

“Wait, you broke the rules for Tony Stark? When you just met him?” Bruce asks incredulously, thinking of how his girlfriend was so meticulous, she wouldn't even let him run personal experiments without following the correct protocols.  
“Yeah. We were only five, okay? Shut up!,” Amelia blushed, slapping his arm. “I'm telling a story.”

Now, the prep school we went to was really exclusive, so there was only one class for each grade level. In first grade, we were still in the same class. That was around the time people started getting silly and teased us about “like-like”-ing each other. You know how it is in elementary school. It was practically like everyone saying we were dating. Honestly, I didn't mind. He was the only person who didn't bore me to tears just by saying something out loud. I didn't have many friends, like now, and it was nice to have someone to share thoughts with. We just sort of clicked, ya know? When I was younger, I actually thought I wouldn't mind dating him, we practically were already, and we did for a while, but that's a different part of my story.   
In second grade, I walked into class early like usual, expecting Tony to come in in a few minutes. I expected him to swagger in with that self-righteous grin of his that he's had since I met him. But he didn't. I didn't see him all day and I was ready to cry by the end of it. He was my only friend in the world and it seemed like he had moved schools. At the end of the day, though, I saw him outside on the steps in front of the school, waiting for Jarvis in our usual place. I ran up to him crying and gave him a hug. I startled the hell out of him, but I didn't care. He was still there, at school. He hadn't moved. I still had a friend.  
“Why weren't you in class today?” I asked him as he wiped my tears off my face, looking slightly uncomfortable.  
“The school moved me into fourth grade. When you start learning real fundamentals. Not that I don't know it all already. I was surprised they didn't move you up to,” Tony said, glancing awkwardly at the ground and playing with the hem of his jeans.  
“My dad didn't want me to seem too smart or something dumb like that,” I told him morosely, chewing on my too-long sleeve again. It still drug on the ground when I stood up, even then.  
“That's stupid,” Tony told me, looking up again, his eyes sparkling again. I could have sworn there were tear tracks on his face. It was the first time I had really gotten to look at his face that day.

“Hey!” Tony interrupts as he walks past the living area where the two scientists were huddled up. “Don't be talking about me behind my back!”  
“It was the day when I found out that your mother was an enabler, while my father was an disenabler!” Amelia grinned, twisting around in Bruce's arms to grin at her best friend.  
“Well I can assure you, I did not cry that day. At all. That was you, sweet cheeks,” Tony says petulantly, walking past and into the kitchen.  
“Whatever you say, muffincup,” Amelia said, settling back into Bruce's side and watching him grin.

Anyway, I had to go the whole year without Tony. I only saw him at lunch and after school. Occasionally, I went to his house or he came to mine, but it wasn't really the same. I got to see him some of the time, but it wasn't like last year, when I got to see him all the time and bounce ideas off each other, or make silly comments, or pass notes. I hated that I didn't get to see him in class, and I could tell that it was killing him too. We both looked sadder and sadder everyday. You should have seen his face light up when we saw each other at the end of the day.

“My face?” Tony asks incredulously, flopping down in his favorite armchair across from Amelia and Bruce. “You should have seen her face! It was almost comical the way it would light up. Her eyes got wider, and, like, sparkled. She smiled for once and her hand came away from her mouth for once. I swear, even her curls got bouncier.”  
“Shut up, Stark!” Amelia sniped, hiding a grin as she felt her boyfriend's chest rumble with quiet laughter. “I'm the one telling this story, and it's not like you could see yourself light up! Your eyes were never shinier than when you first saw me. And believe it or not, I can tell the difference between your cocky show-grin and your genuinely happy smile. Just saying.”

Anyway, after yet another interruption, nothankyouTony, we were drifting, basically. So, it was amazing when one day over the summer, I had gone back to Tony's house and he was bouncing up and down on his toes, entirely too excited about something. He hadn't even let his butler Jarvis get the door. He ran down himself, having seen me coming from his bedroom window. Which is creepy, by the way. But we ran up to his room, after I took off my shoes while he complained about my being slow, and on his bed, amidst all these random parts and tools and circuit boards and things I couldn't name for the life of me, were these two cellphone-like things. Now, you remember cell phones back in the seventies; they were bulky, ginormous, and could only call. But what Tony had done, in a week, mind you, was he had put together a cellphone and a pager and made them small enough to fit in your pocket. It was like, the first modern cell phone, but he never mass-produced them, patented them, or even told his parents about it. We could communicate in class and no one would really know.  
It was amazing, and it made the rest of school so much better. We could talk in class again, even if it wasn't the same as hearing his annoying voice. I became more withdrawn in fourth grade, though, when Tony went to the middle school. My father still refused to have me jump ahead, even though I was clearly bored in class. I didn't even have Tony to talk to at lunch or after school because the middle school was on a different campus and even had different hours. I really only got to talk to Tony when we were able to hang out after school, which became less and less often when my father finally started paying attention to where I was going. He also didn't like the fact that Tony was in middle school; obviously, he had forgotten that Tony is the same age as me.  
So all day, in fourth and fifth grade, I would just text Tony. In fact, I thought I texted him so much that he got bored of me and had thrown his phone away. In reality, he was just distracted by girls. Puberty and all that. That's when he began his playboy reputation, though it's hard to do that when you only get two classes of girls to mess with. But over the summer, I spent practically every day at his house. We would work together in a spare room Tony had turned into a sort of workshop. He would tinker around with whatever project he was building at the time, and I messed around with his chemistry set a bit. That's actually how I first got into bio-chem. Bouncing equations and ideas off Tony in the summer before sixth grade. I discovered a truth serum that summer. I used it on Tony without telling him. He told me he thought I was cute and an absolute genius.

“Hey, wait, you drugged me?” Tony says semi-angrily, sitting up straight.  
“Yeah, and you didn't remember which is why I told you my serum was a bust. I didn't want you getting your hands on it and using it for whatever nefarious purposes I thought you had when you were twelve,” Amelia shrugs.  
“Don't tell him, but I actually do that a lot. When he won't come out of the lab. I use it for blackmail,” Bruce leans down slightly to whisper in Amelia's ear, causing her to laugh and put her hand over her mouth to hide her grin.  
“What? What is it?” Tony demands, looking suspiciously between the two scientists.  
“Nothing, nothing,” Amelia waves it off. “I'm telling a story, so shh!”

But I was excited about sixth grade. I would finally be going to the same school as Tony and could hang out with him at lunch and between classes and before and after school. It was going to be amazing. And on the first day he did. We even walked to school together.  
“So, how's it feel being a big middle schooler now?” he asked me on the way there.  
“Scary,” I said sarcastically, grinning slightly from behind my sleeve. I still wore my mum's jacket and the sleeves had finally stopped dragging on the ground. “Kidding. I have you to protect me from the bullies, Mr. Eighth Grader,” I teased him, turning pink in spite of myself.  
“Oh yes, everyone at school is afraid of me and my guns,” he joked, flexing his arm muscles. They actually looked quite nice from all the tool wielding he had done over the summer. But, when we got to school, he walked with me to what was apparently “his” table in the cafeteria and all these random girls who had already gone through puberty, unlike me, came up and started talking to Tony.  
I felt awkward and out of place, surrounded by all these beautiful girls with actual boobs who were already wearing makeup and things. And they were all talking to Tony, who was just soaking it up. I sat there and stared emptily at the clock until five minutes before the bell. I got up and walked to my homeroom with barely a word to Tony. Not that he noticed.

“I did too notice! I called after you, but you didn't notice,” Tony says defensively, also remembering that day.  
“Are you sure calling after me doesn't really mean, hey sweetheart, we should walk and talk. Wouldn't want you in detention on the first day,” Amelia says scathingly before smiling. “It doesn't matter. I doubt you even remember any of those girls' names.”  
“Well...no, not really,” Tony says sheepishly, sinking back in his chair.

Anyway, after that I just stopped orbiting around Planet Tony. At school anyways. After school, we would meet up and go back to either his place or mine, where the real fun happened. Tony was actually taking high school courses online—all the ones the middle school didn't already offer—and I got to study with him, even though my dad still refused to let me jump any grades. It was all easy stuff that we were doing, and Tony passed all four years of high school in one. With a bit of my help. I made sure he studied and remembered to sign up to take the ACT and SAT. I even one time called into the school to say Tony was going to the doctor's as his mother and forged a doctor's note. That is probably the most rebellious thing I've done. Besides maybe texting him in class. Not that anyone knew what texting was at the time.  
I went with him to get his diploma and helped fill out his college applications while he wrote the essays. It was hectic, getting everything in last minute. But it was probably the most fun I had had in years. Or ever had until I started the process. I was Tony's voice of reason in a hard time; I worked behind the scenes and no one at school would even guess that we spoke. Except for a few really crazy sorta-girlfriends. They were scary. Threatened me and tried to murder me or something. I didn't like it. Tony always broke up with them the next day.   
I waved him off to MIT with Jarvis driving, since he obviously didn't have his license yet, and I wasn't about to let him break the law. I cried that night. My one and only friend in the entire universe gone. I couldn't hang out with him, I couldn't text him. The only time I got to see him was in the summer when he came home with his pockets full of weed and smuggled booze in his new car. He made a robot that summer, before I went into eighth grade. He loved using it to mess with me, and it almost felt like old times. Except when I would walk into the smokey haze that was the workshop. Or have him stumble up to me with booze on his breath and hands on my chest. I didn't mind though. He made me feel like I could live up to college girls or whatever new standards I thought he had.  
He told me he was working with artificial intelligence just to spite his professor, who said that it wouldn't be possible for a long time. He said he was going to put it into his robot, Dummy. Like his professor called him. A dummy. He actually sent me a video of that during winter break. It was very rudimentary then, and Dummy couldn't do much more than swing his arm up and down, left and right, and open and close his claw on command. But he could still do it. Tony worked on Dummy until he could fetch things from across the room at a command.  
When he came home that summer, I looked over his coding, having looked up how to code myself while I was bored. I helped program Dummy to make coffee and fetch pill bottles to help with the hangovers and late nights that left Tony looking like shit.

“I didn't know you did that,” Tony says, looking skeptically at Amelia.  
“Well, I did. You didn't wonder who was making your coffees in the middle of the night?” Amelia smiles, pushing her heavy glasses up her nose again.  
“Well...no. I assumed it was my roommate,” Tony shrugs, blushing slightly.  
“Well, it was Dummy. You're welcome,” Amelia laughs, shifting to lay down in Bruce's lap while he strokes her hair.

After I graduated high school, Tony texted me to say he was graduating top of his class. Immediately, I packed up my bags and took a road trip up to Massachusetts, where I barged into his dorm room and dragged him to his own graduation. He wasn't even wearing the gown, just the cap I had grabbed off his dresser.

“I remember my speech from that! 'I am Tony Stark and I am better than all you old people. I'm not even twenty yet, so suck it!'” Tony grins, putting his feet up over the arm of his chair and slouching.  
“Do you remember my speech after that?” Amelia grins. “'I'm sorry. In Tony that translates to thank you for these honors of the highest kind; I could not have gotten here without help from my friends and professors. I'm sure everyone here has worked very hard to get this far, and we should all be proud of ourselves. Thank you,'”   
“That was the best speech ever. You should have seen the look on people's faces. They were like, wait, Tony has a friend his age? Is she graduating too? WTF is this shit? It was hilarious!” Tony laughs, remembering.  
“No! I was bright red and chewing on my thumb again!” Amelia says, turning red and covering up her face as she curls up into her boyfriend.  
“Probably the only Tony-translator at the time, and I bet you mumbled,” Bruce teases, grinning down at her and running his fingers through her hair again.  
“Shut up,” she mutters, “I'm trying to tell a story.”

Anyway, that was when Tony asked me out. I came down off the stage, completely mortified and red, and he just comes up to me and kisses me. “Hey sweet cheeks,” he said, pulling away and blushing slightly, “Wanna go out with me?” He just grinned and he had his arms around my waist and honestly? At the time, I thought it was the hottest thing ever. My best friend, a complete genius, was asking me out. After spending five years around gorgeous college girls in daisy dukes and short shorts. I felt on top of the world.  
“Yeah, I guess,” I stuttered incoherently, licking my lips as he leaned in again. It was also my first kiss that he got, but he didn't say anything about if I was good or not. That summer, I stayed mostly at his place. I think my dad assumed I had moved out. It's not like I had spoken to him in years. Our relationship was pretty great. The same it had always been, working together and bouncing ideas, but with more touching and kissing. He helped me pack up and move into my college dorm room. He even walked around to classes with me.   
I was great for two years, but then he had to legally take over his family's company. It had been years since his parents had died, but he wasn't legally allowed to until he was twenty one for whatever stupid reason. They were a great two years, and Tony earned a couple more PhDs while attending classes with me.  
“Hey Amy?” I knew something was wrong the second he said that to me. Just the way he spoke, with a questioning tone. I knew something was up, and he wasn't sure how to tell me.  
“Yeah?” I said, feigning innocence. I could see in his eyes that he knew I knew something was up.  
“What if...what if I told you I own a business now?” he asked hesitantly, coming up behind me and hugging my waist.  
“Then...I'd be proud of you. And tell you to get a partner before you crash it into the ground,” I told him quietly, turning off my Bunsen burner and turning around in his arms.  
“You don't think I'd make a good CEO?” he asked indignantly, pulling me closer.  
“Nope,” I grinned, putting my arms around his neck. “But I think you'd make a good business partner. Maybe. With help.”  
“So you wouldn't be mad if I told you I already had one? And his name is Obadiah Stane?” Tony asked quietly, tilting his head down to look at me.  
I smiled softly and pressed a small kiss to the corner of his mouth. “I'm glad you've taken over your dad's company. It had to happen one day,” I told him, leaning against his chest.  
“Well that's good,” He had said with his confidence coming back. “I was scared you'd flip out about never getting to see me again.”  
“Tony Stark, I do not flip out. I quietly regress inside myself until I become an unrecognizable shell,” I had grinned back up at him and kissed him back softly.  
“Well, don't do that either,” he mumbled against my lips. I think that was the first time he had gotten me in bed.

“Did not need to know that,” Bruce protests, turning pink and placing his hands into his ears.  
“Sorry, Snuffles,” Amelia apologizes immediately, sitting up and kissing his cheek. “I like my memories with you better, if that helps,” she whispers seductively in his ear, nuzzling his cheek and looking up at him with big brown eyes.  
“Mm, thanks Boo,” Bruce grins slightly, turning his head to peck her softly on the lips. Both of them ignore Tony's over dramatic eye-shielding and protests about PDA.  
“Tony, what are you squawking about?” Pepper asks, coming in with a clipboard in her hand.  
“Amy's attempting to retell how our lives went before she met Bruce and failing horribly,” Tony says, peeking out from behind his fingers.  
“Well, you're the one being awfully loud about it,” Pepper chastises, sitting next to him in the arm chair.  
“Because these two are the loudest people in the world,” Tony says sarcastically, nevertheless making room for his girlfriend and placing an arm around her waist.  
“I was actually just saying how much I believed in Tony when he first told me he was taking over the company,” Amelia says sarcastically, turning back around but leaving her arms around Bruce's neck as she settles back into his side.  
“Sounds fun,” Pepper grins, settling into Tony's side after setting her clipboard on the coffee table. “Do continue.”  
Amelia blushes but goes on, squeezing her boyfriend for strength.

Well, at the end of that summer, Tony helped me move back into my college dorm and then went off to be CEO somewhere in New York. I didn't really see him until the next summer. But even then, it was only now and then. He spent more time in his workshop without anyone else to help him then actually running the company, but I thought he had forgotten about me. Didn't want to bother keeping a chemistry set and obscure elements in his lab and leave all the space for engineering new weapons or whatever it was he did.  
Looking back, he had probably just forgotten the date and didn't realize that it was summer or something stupid like that. He just fell into a routine and tried not to stray from it. I did notice Dummy was still working, though, and felt proud when he brought Tony another mug of coffee.  
He didn't help me go back to my dorm that summer, and the one after I took summer classes. No use going back to the one thing that kept me rooted when he wasn't there anymore. He never showed up to my graduation, though I was sure I invited him. No one else would show up. But then, neither did he. I told myself that he was too busy inventing new things like our now out-dated cell phones. I told myself he was running the company and rising up the corporate ladder, like my dad had always wanted me to. I tortured myself by keeping up with the news stories about Tony. Watched his public ascent and playboy tendencies soar. It killed me, everyday, to see his face. To know he was doing things I would never be able to. To know he was...growing up. Growing away. Leaving me behind like a middle school fling.  
And yet I still hoped. I kept my decades old cell phone from second grade charged and running, if gathering a bit of dust. I was stupid; really, I was. I had thought Tony would help me with the job searching thing and making a life after college. I thought so many things. I was like a love-sick puppy, the way I ran for my phone when I heard it ringing. I had actually been watching his press conference after coming back from Afghanistan when it went off. I shut off the TV and dived for my phone, yanking it off the charger, at the same time, which is about as much physical coordination I've had in my entire life.  
“Tony?” I whispered when I hit Accept. “Is that you?”  
“Yeah, hey, Amy,” he said in that tone of voice. I could tell something was bothering him. Again. After years of not hearing his voice. I thought maybe it was the awkwardness of having not said so much as two words to me in forever.  
“What's up?” I asked, chewing on the patched and still fraying sleeve of my mum's jacket.  
“I'm sure you've heard that, uh,” he stopped, searching for words, “I've kinda...been away. And...It made me think...about all the time...way back when...when you'd just....be around. Some one I could really talk to. And...I realized we haven't spoken in years,” he hesitated and I could tell he was thinking of how to ask something.  
“No, we haven't. Aren't you glad I still have this old thing? It's been dying of disuse in my room for forever,” I tried to laugh but couldn't at the choked up sound of his voice.  
“Yeah, I was just...wondering...If you'd come to Malibu, maybe? Sometime? The old team, working together again,” he asked nervously.  
“Let me try and get some vacation time. It probably won't be hard. I'll call you to let you know when I'm coming?” I offered, trying not to choke up or let my voice break.  
“Yeah, yeah. That sounds good. I...guess I'll talk to you soon...sweet cheeks...” he trailed off, using an old nickname for me. He hadn't used it since he was in middle school.  
“Okay...bye...muffincup,” I had responded, using my old nickname for him. It felt weird to say it after all those years.  
By the time I had managed to get a week off, though, he told me it probably wasn't a good idea because he was Iron Man and had just got attacked by his business partner. To put it simply. I told him okay, because what else was I supposed to do, and said to call me back when he got everything together. I didn't get that call until a few years later, after he had built Stark Tower. He invited me to stay, so I got another week off and went up to visit him. I remember the first thing he said to me was, “You still have that old thing?” in reference to my jacket. I shrugged and pulled away from his hug.  
“Yeah. It means a lot to me,” I told him, pushing my glasses back up my nose and chewing on my thumb.  
“Obviously,” he grinned. “Why don't I give you the tour?” he offered and I followed him around, leaving my bag in the hallway in his penthouse apartment like instructed. I remember when he showed me his lab, I noticed a small, untouched station. Right in the back. Near the storage cupboard in fact. Upon closer inspection, it was a chemist's playground. Everything I could have wanted to work with ever right at my fingertips. No more than a few paces away. It was amazing. And untouched. Like it was waiting for someone to come play with it.  
“I didn't know if you were still into chemistry, so...” Tony said after a few minutes, trailing off.  
I spun and hugged him, burying my face in his neck. “It's perfect. It's just like old times,” I mumbled, feeling him tentatively wrap his arms around me again.  
“Yeah, that...that is what I was thinking when I built it,” Tony said hesitantly, letting go of me again.  
“Thanks, muffincup,” I said sincerely, trying to hold tears back and pushing my glasses back up my nose. 

“I remember that!” Pepper cuts in, smiling. “I walked in right before you said that and was very confused. Tony hadn't told me we were expected any guests.”  
“Sorry! Communication is not my strong point; you know that babe,” Tony protests, shoving his nose into the crook of her neck and making her jump, giggling.  
“That was a bit of an awkward way to meet Tony's girlfriend,” Amelia concedes, also laughing.

But anyways, after a few days, Tony got called away to work with the Avengers. I was really upset at the time. I had literally just gotten back into my routine with Tony in the lab, talking and bouncing ideas around. I had been so used to solitude and silence—it was nice to have human interaction again. And then it was gone, just as quick.  
I took to curling up on the couch with a blanket and just watching the news or something. All day. Neither Pepper nor Tony were around and the only person to talk to was JARVIS—a magnificent recreation of the original by the way. You got the voice matrix perfect. But whatever. I watched the battle in person, out the window. I saw you falling past and screamed my lungs out. I was terrified. I retreated back into the lab and blew some shit up. Blew off some steam Tony Stark style. Not really my thing, but I didn't know what else to do.   
Then you come back, and you were fine! A couple of scratches but otherwise perfect! And you've got Mr. Beautiful here with you needing to borrow pants and I swear, I could have fainted. Right then and there. I was ready to die. I just ran back to lab instead and pretended I hadn't noticed.  
I officially met you, Bruce, the next day. After shwarma and sending Loki home and whatever it is I really didn't want to know. You know the rest,” Amelia concluded, reaching up to kiss her boyfriend sweetly.


End file.
